Friday, August 11, 2017

More than 20 Russian Regions Now at Third World Levels Economically

Paul
Goble

Staunton, August 10 – According to
official statistics, approximately every fourth subject of the Russian
Federation has a GDP per capita that puts in on par with third world countries
like Sudan, Nigeria, and Guatemala, and all of them are suffering as a result
from rising crime and increasing interest in emigration.

Among these failing places, which
should be called “zones of national disasters,” the Russian nationalist RNE
portal says, are predominantly ethnic Russian areas like Bryansk, Ivanovo,
Kirov, and Kurgan oblasts, Stavropol and Transbaikal krays, and non-Russian
republics like Altay, Mordvinia, and Buryatia (rusnation.org/sfk/1708/1708-12.shtml).

Not only is Moscow sucking them dry,
but their collapse is contributing to ever larger capital flight. In the first
seven months of 2015, net capital flight increased 1.5 times from the same
period a year earlier to 13.1 billion US dollars. And over the past year, more
than 2,000 “dollar millionaires” moved abroad with their money.

But it is not only the wealthy who
are thinking about leaving. Ever more people and especially the young are too,
sparking predictions that Russia in the coming years faces its largest
emigration in history. Among them are the most educated, something that will
cost Russia its future.

The Russian nationalist site argues
that the Kremlin “is transforming the entire country into ‘a zone of national
disaster.’ By the most optimistic predictions, the Russian Federation will need
not less than a decade to compensate for the fall of incomes over the last
three years and return at least to the level of 2014.”

But “in reality,” RNE continues,
economists say that Russia faces “at a minimum, 20 years of economic
stagnation.”Kremlin propagandists argue
otherwise, but “the more pragmatic part of the electorate doesn’t believe these
promises and is either packing its bags or experiencing ever greater anger as a
result of the constantly worsening quality of life.”